“300: Rise of an Empire” disappoints

By Rollie Nicholes
Staff Writer

The history of the wars in Greece proved to only be a good movie plot so many times; this time, if it weren’t for the more sexy aspects, the film “300: Rise of an Empire”, would be completely unwatchable.

This new film is based on the wars between the Greeks and the Persians in 499 BC. The majority of the scenes take place on the battlefields in Greece. The wars that actually did happen in history are portrayed well throughout the film including the hundreds of thousands of deaths that occurred
“300: Rise of an Empire” is the movie following the 2006 film “300” and the differences between the two are slim if any. The numerous minutes of war scenes, are repeated in both films leaving the new one with a huge lack of originality.

There are no real aspects of the film that stand out, or even meet expectations for example, the acting, fighting, and actual talking seems completely fake and makes the movie even worse.

Although the film has many bad qualities, one good one is the music throughout. The music gets louder and softer at more exciting or depressing times. Without the quality music, this film would fall apart completely.

The music for the film is composed by Tom Holkenborg, known as Junkie XL, who does a phenomenal job making fast paced music for the battles that give the film excitement and give the viewers some suspense and adrenaline.

Leading character Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) is the head of the Greek army. Stapleton is not a well renowned actor and shows it through his mediocre job of acting his part as a fearless leader. Stapleton’s voice and tone do not portray his role well as he acts cowardly and does not stand out.

The Persian forces were lead by Artemesia (Eva Green) who also failed to impress in her role. Green’s acting is completely unbelievable and not enjoyable to watch because she fails to make her lines seem like a real conversation.

This film has very little plot as it mainly develops around the battles and war scenes. More than two thirds of the film takes part on the battlefield and at times all the fighting gets boring.
This film lacked any qualities that made it really stand out and is not recommended. The poor acting jobs by the leading actors and the unoriginality of the storyline make this movie disappointingly bad.

“300: Rise of an Empire” is rated R and is playing in theatres nationwide.